Dark Knights of Memel - JanLetovanec/laurasia-worldbuilding GitHub Wiki

Dark knights of Memel

Raising an army was not an option for Memel, logistically speaking. Instead, they opted for the Dark Knight program. While it may seem a silly idea today, it had some serious merit, at least back then. If city states of Memel were a target, it would likely be because of their wealth and production, rather than land and natural resource, of which they did not have that many. Each city state is concentrated in a very limited area and could feasibly be controlled and defended from very few and small locations. For defending such small areas numbers were not that beneficial and it was believed that a well-trained team of specialist could feasibly take back control of an overrun city or defend against a siege. Thus, they started the Dark Knight Program.

History

Origins

Memel has historically relied on outside help, when it came to defending their borders: Bryten fleets to protect the coasts and mercenaries to defend against occasional marauders from the deserts. The united committee of city states of Memel, as they called themselves before they became The Mayorate of Six, felt necessary that they at least try to form some sort of defense against invaders, should their allies decide to leave them in a pickle. The failed Nomad invasion is often quoted as the de-facto start of the "Dark knight" program, but the idea was in the workings long before that. The committee really just waited for an excuse to justify not re-investing into more trade and growth.

Once the decision was made, they started picking exceptional soldiers gathering them together and had them excessively trained. A lot of gold was poured into making these "super-soldiers" and it seemed, for the most part, their efforts were worth it. There were deployed at a couple of monster outbreaks with a resounding success.

Downfall

After a while, however, with no war or invasion in sight, the knights were quickly losing their original appeal and many started questioning whether they actually needed them in the first place. People started to feel the heavy cost of upkeep. This climaxed in protests in one of the city states and Mayorate promised to take action

The Maoyrate froze the training of the new members to save costs and started investigating ways to cut the costs further. While originally knight units were supposed to work as a team, but the Mayorate realized they can get more value for their gold if they split the teams and spread them more thinly. One knight could still deal with the day to day business, so taking the whole team seemed to them as overkill.

Many believe that this was their down-fall. The Dark Knights were often deployed to perilous mission without getting payed. Comradery was the only thing keeping them together. Without that the morale quickly fell. Knights stopped focusing, started slacking. Jobs were botched.

Dissolution

Sooner or later, something was about to happen. Jonas Southerman was that something. He died during his duty - with a few jobs string one after each other he was exhausted. That is when a stray knife in the dark got him. Off-duty, technically, but it did. Jonas returned the favor to the attacker, and a small skirmish broke out on the streets between the attacker and now freshly dying Jonas. In the confusion, a civilian caught in the cross-fire and died. When the news broke that "an elite unit killing a civilian and taken down by a regular thug", people were angry. Not only that, but many knight felt this could be prevented - they believed the Mayorate squeezed him dry, as they did all the knights and a strike followed. Naturally this caused a havoc among the folk - their paying taxes for useless warriors which even refuse to fight?!

With the Mayorate being stuck between an angry mob and uncooperative knights, their options were limited. Finally, they decided to dissolve the unit and kill the dark knight program.

Privileges

Dark knights could have their expenses related to fulfilling their duties expensed, and had their living costs covered so long they stayed at the appointed premises.

Their training, equipment and general upkeep was also covered and generally available near their living quarters or way-stations around Memel, to which they had a free access.

However, they did not get payed directly and technically did not own anything on their own, but they were supposed to be take care of after their retirement. Unfortunately, the unit got disbanded before anyone got to retire.

As for the... less official perks... Dark Knights were considered an authority above any typical chain command, even outside of their field. This was strictly informal and was not backed by the law, but you would probably think twice if a person armed to their teeth in a heavy armor and experience to back them up tells you to stop doing whatever you're doing. Similarly, since Dark Knights were a sort of pet project of the Mayorate, authorities were a bit more lenient when it came to law.

Current whereabouts

Dark knight unit got disbanded and with it, any plans the Mayorate had with them shattered. This included their retirement they were promised. These veterans were left with very little in terms of actual wealth, but at least they could keep their weaponry and equipment, which in some cases it could fetch a small fortune.

Some knights chose to apply their trade elsewhere, enrolling in mercenary companies, striking on their own as contractors, sellswords, and bodyguards, or in some cases as advisors and consultants. Others were hired as teachers and drill instructors, training regular soldiers around Laurasia. Few even sold their weapons and armour and decided to actually retire in peace.

Notable groups

While it may sound as a bitter end to many, some manage to put their skills and tools to some use and even became successful...

Bookmen brothers

Bookmen brothers are, as the name suggests, brothers. Bookmen served as dark knights and their specialty was stealth and precision shooting. After the knights were disbanded, they earned their living as consultants. They advised around security and safety. Occasionally, they were asked to review and pen-test certain vaults or security measures.

Different institutions often used their services for legal reasons - since they need to prove that their security is "up to snuff".

Dealing with that involved a lot of paperwork and navigating the legal waters. As the time passed, they started to widen the range of services they offered. In addition to their expertise they started to offer financial and legal advice.

Black-clad adventuring company

Black-clad company started as 5 ex-knights, deciding to continue with pretty much the same thing they were doing so far. Except this time, they'd be paid for their efforts. At first, they simply hunted down every job at town-hall boards, but soon councilors started hiring them for help. That should not come as a surprise - the councilors and mayors often worked with the Dark Knights back when they were a thing, so they already knew what one was capable of... now there were 5 of them.

As they were hired for higher and higher paying jobs, they were forced to fill in a lot of paperwork and go through a lot of red-tape. This marked the official conception of the Black-clad adventuring company. After they became a legitimate company they were showered with even more jobs and offers. Then they were got a brilliant idea - they would use some of the gold they acquired to interview, train and hire more candidates into their ranks which they then sent to easier jobs.

In a few months, they pivoted from doing all the work themselves to hiring, training and managing young adventurers. They pretty much became an adventuring guild, and indeed, they siphon quite a lot of profit and manpower from the existing guilds, which earned them some bad blood with the guild-masters.

Special Search & Rescue foundation

Special Search & Rescue foundation, or SpecSeRes for short, was originally founded by Maria Brittleback. Given that knights were trained to work and survive in harsh conditions, many of their skills overlapped well with those of a good search-party. Moreover, their combat expertise was handy to fight back against wild-life that would normally render conventional rescue team infeasible. With this gap on the market in mind, the SpecSeRes was born.

Originally, this only involved Maria and her husband being contracted to find so-and-so there-and-there, track this missing person, escort the healers over here and so on. Maria handled the actual jobs, whereas her husband dealt with the paperwork and logistics. During her travels, Maria picked up a couple of allies and capable friends that were happy to join her group. As their numbers grew, so did their popularity. They quickly climbed from being "the volunteers for hire" to becoming THE expert team that authorities, cities and sometimes even foreign governments called upon, to sort out missing cases.

Eventually, this business got stable and if Maria really wanted, she could just "let the company run itself", but she liked venturing into the field, trying to save some more lives.

One day though, she left her office, appointing one of her most capable friends to run the company in her stead. There are many rumors that surround her sudden abdication, but almost all seem to agree that this has something to do with her husband's death.

Rutherford's Academy

Perhaps the simplest story of these companies and groups is the story of Rutherford's Academy. Rutherford was an old veteran of the knights. He was about to retire and was already planning on enjoying the retirement promises of the Mayorate, but the shut-down of the project threw a wrench into his plans.

He didn't mind the work too much, but he was getting old and it would soon be infeasible for him to continue. Instead, he elected to share his skill and expertise... for a price. He liked doing it though, and perhaps that was what separated him from the rest. That and years and years of experience.

Originally, he only trained highly skilled specialists, but soon he realized he could earn much more by training nobles and wider public, albeit the results were much less impressive. That was how the "dual-track" academy was born. He would spend most of his time with the small, highly skilled groups and then a few hours with large novice groups to balance things out. Later, as he trained more and more folks, some expressed a wish to aid Rutherford in his drills. Of course, Rutherford welcomed this idea - which allowed him to expand his academy even more.

Handy Hammers

Handy hammers is a company founded by Nicolas Greener, a former dark knight. He was tired of the knight business and it came almost as a relief to him when the unit disbanded. His initial idea was to sell his gear and live off what was left. One of his would-be buyers had a different idea, though. Kerlin, a collector of sorts, persuaded him, to keep some of his weaponry and get some more unique weapons as investment, which they would then sell together as a collection. This turned out to be a good hit.

Nicolas started to like the idea and, as he became friends with Kerlin, the new idea for their business was born. Nicolas cashed in some favors from his knight days and arranged a meeting with Bourne - a former arms-master for the knights. Together they were repairing old antique weapons, appraising existing ones, and selling the results at huge margins.

As their capital grew, so did their merchandise. They expanded their stock from antique weapons to magic items, rare scrolls and collectible oddities. The magic items were the real hit though, which earned them a fortune.

With the money and fame came rumours and whispers. Allegedly they posses a secret collection, only available to the highest bidders, which contains especially dangerous items. Few elven advisors and officials could often be seen near their offices, and according to the rumor are frequent customers of Handy Hammers' hidden auction house.

Composition

Equipment

Each knight is free to chose their own weaponry and additional equipment.

Formally, their load-out is supposed to consist of a 2 melee weapon, one of which should be easily concealable and suitable for close quarters, 1 ranged weapon of their choice, a selection of alchemists pouches elixirs and bombs. In practice, they all brought to the fight what they thought they needed, but usually was a superset of aforementioned odds.

Then there is the Memel tool-knife, which is not a formal requirement. Much in character for Memel production, tool-knife is a magical tool, that can morph into a tool you need the most. It is pretty handy, but it does have limitations. Still the value it brings for its weight and size is enormous, and so all knights simply choose to take it with them.

Finally, there is the glamour armor. The dark knights have this piece of equipment to thank for their name and notoriety. It was engineered specifically with the knight unit in mind - it had to allow for nimble and unobstructed movement, needed to be silent and inconspicuous in the dark to aid them in their covert tasks. But it should also seem to be very protective when their cover was blown, or the knight decided to take more direct approach.

It also could, temporarily, change how it looks like, maybe aiding their knight in disguising or camouflaging. Technically speaking, its a little more than a leather armor with a few illusions bolted on top of it, but there is no knight that would swap their glamour armor for a regular plate mail. Perhaps they know something we don't?

Training

Each dark knight was free to specialize however they saw fit. Most chose to train with their weapons of choice, but some preferred to widen their expertise and chose a mix of weapons and tools.

But there were few training courses that each knight had to undergo:

General physical ability training - as the name suggest, this was aimed to physical prowess
Advanced adaptability training - this was aimed at surviving in harsh conditions and without proper tools, as well as training knights to perform their duties in unusual scenarios, such as being underwater, airborne, poly-morphed etc.
Advanced Covert Operations Briefing - a.k.a. ACOBs among knights, was perhaps the core idea of the unit. This was their stealth and sabotage training.
Alchemy training - Pretty self-explanatory. Knights were meant to be working in small groups isolated from their supply lines for potentially long time. To further improve their effectivity in such situation, Mayorate thought that proper use of alchemy could replenish most of the use supplies. This turned out to be the most popular course and ended up being THE thing knights were known for (as opposed to the stealth capabilities Mayorate was hoping for)